atkins diet?

My friend has been doing the atkins diet now for 2 week and has lost 10lbs.  She's been having an english fry up for breafast, a salad with cheese, egg and mayonaise for lunch and steak and salad for dinner.  What is wrong with that?

no carbs LOL 

I had an aweful time trying atkins.  I just couldnt eat all that meat.  I ended up getting about 500-700 calories and only lost a little.  I think water weight LOL  I used to be vegan though so some things are very hard to change, I still have a hard time getting my protein in normal range, I have to consiously make sure to get more protein.  But I have heard it works for some, just not me!

--Sumi

firstly, that's a lot of saturated / other bad fats. secondly, it's mostly water weight: http://www.atkinsexposed.org/atkins/14/Losing _(Water)_Weight.htm

there is nothing wrong with it.  The Atkins diet has endured for decades amidst criticisms that it was so unhealthy when it is not.

and it isn't mostly just water weight.  lots of people have successfully lost and maintained substantial weight losses through Atkins. 

It's not my personal way to go -- I prefer to have lots of fruits and whole grains, but if it works for your friend, then more power to her.

i know. my father is one of them. then again he took up chain smoking afterwards so who knows *shrug* i didn't say it wouldn't work nor that it didn't. i apologise for mistyping though, it should have said 'probably' water weight, it's late... my computer crashed halfway through me typing the post.

i don't agree that it is healthy. i think there's substantial evidence that suggests it isn't, and i'm going to go with that... that's how i like to do things. lots of people have successfully lost and maintained weight loss through healthy balanced diet and exercise too, but no one seems to be arguing about that.

then again, if it works and you can maintain afterwards healthily... great.

No dietary fiber.  No vitamins.  I don't know what an english fry up is, but the eggs, cheese, mayonnaise and steak are all high in saturated fat ... terrible for your heart.

There's a lot of debate about high protein diets.  The consensus seems to be that yes, you will lose weight and quickly.  But for many people, once you revert to eating carbs all the weight and more will come back.  There's also a lot of debate about whether eating too much protein increases your risk of kidney and liver disease as well as osteoporosis.

Give it a try if you want ... my dad did it, lost a lot of weight, and has kept it off by being sensible about his portions and exercising regularly.  But make sure to get all the info.  Here are a few links:

http://exercise.about.com/cs/nutrition/a/lowc arb.htm
http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml? identifier=11234
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.p hp?newsid=59423
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/12 /protein_cancer.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1586574.stm

I tried Atkins 2 years ago and believe it or not, that was the only diet that worked for me!  I lost 30 pounds within I think 3 to 6 months and went down more than 3 sizes. HOWEVER, as soon as I stop, I gained pretty much all the weight back but it's 100% my fault because I did not maintain properly, instead, I went crazy on carb after I stopped the diet.  Maybe that's what I need to do again since I am not losing with low calories/South Beach diet.

I started low calories in combination with South Beach diet on January 16 and so far I lost 14 pounds only and haven't been losing for the last 3 weeks -not even 1lb! The only thing that keeps me motivated is how my pants feel --rely loose.

low calorie mean how many? Also when you say south beach diet, what does that exactly mean? I am trying to understand all thee different options i have??

i tried it but found that eating all that meat all the time became less appealing to me, things started tasting really salty all the time.  I lost some but upon slowing introducing carbs back in i stop lossing weight and gained back more than when i started - plus it gave me horrible breath!

I lost about 40 pounds in 4 months on it 10 years ago. I had great energy, no problems with the plumbing backing up so to speak and loved every minute of it. My cholesterol numbers were awesome and my doc was very impressed. Then one day I started throwing up just looking at meat or eggs and I had to give it up. It was the wierdest thing. Last year I did a modified version of it for about 6 months and it went much better.

everyone responds differently to different diets. keep an eye on health and be in good touch with your doc and maybe it could work for you (or your friend) too... or not.

 

There's nothing especially wrong with it per se.   If you don't count the expense, the lack of fibre, the salt content (cheese, bacon, sausages?) &  the complete absence of quite a few vitamins.   But losing weight is easy....  maintaining the loss sorts the men from the boys.  If you cut out most carbohydrates you end up with a very, very small range of foods to choose from.... for life!!  I remember one Atkins devotee I knew that ate something like 20 eggs a week....  That's going to get boring at some stage.  She admitted constipation was a big issue...and the farts... phew!!

The only difference between what your friend is eating and the deadly 'Western Diet' that kills people by the million is a slice of bread and a can of Coke.  Not sure that's a tightrope people should be walking too often.

Same thing that is wrong with every other "diet" if you cannot stick to it for the rest of your life why bother. Diets cause you to YoYo. Not healthy and why would you want to do that to your body. Eat a balanced/clean diet, loose slowly and keep it off.